Adaptation of Kent Haruf's novel "Our Souls at Night". Haruf wrote the novel under a death sentence, just months before his death of lung cancer at age 71, in November 2014. The novel was published posthumously in May 2015.

The fictional county of Holt, where the film and Kent Haruf's novel are set, is in Eastern Colorado. Holt is a composite of the three Colorado towns where the author grew up: Wray, Holyoke and Yuma. All of Haruf's novels take place in the fictional town of Holt.